wskentfor wiki-work i sat through a presentation from one of the leading AI guys at microsoft and he all but confirmed this
The creator and lead maintaner of Linux says AI is 90% marketing, 10% reality. Linus speaks for a lot of us, I think! That it's marketed as "AI" in the first place is a good example of what he's talking about. — Read the rest
The post Linus Torvalds: AI is 90% marketing, 10% reality appeared first on Boing Boing.
wskentwhat. i like this
wskentdumb competitions. instant share
This 1897 Strand Magazine article, written by Framley Steelcroft (that's gotta be a fake name), covers unusual competitions that brought joy and excitement to working-class East End Londoners at the turn of the century.
Do you fancy climbing a greasy pole to grab a leg of mutton? — Read the rest
The post Wolfing down scalding hot biscuits and other weird contests from 1897 appeared first on Boing Boing.
wskentgood use of technology
wskenther work is incredible. i've been to some exhibitions and they're worth your time
The first major US retrospective of Vivian Maier’s photography is currently on display at Fotografiska New York through Sept 29. Maier was a street photographer whose work was discovered in 2007 and is now recognized “alongside the greatest masters of the twentieth century”.
You can see much more of Maier’s work on this website of her work.
Tags: museums · photography · Vivian Maier
wskentgood haul here
wskenti only use google for work these days and, boy oh boy, does it stink. i followed this to make it suck a little less: https://tenbluelinks.org/
If you’ve searched for something on Google lately, you might’ve noticed a wall of text that appears before the actual search results. This feature, called AI Overviews, offers an AI-generated answer to certain queries. But it also pushes your list of links further down the page, which makes it a bit annoying to scroll past when you want to do your own research — and it will get even more annoying once Google starts stuffing ads into it.
But even though Google doesn’t let you disable the feature, there are a few ways around it.
One of the best ways to “turn off” the feature is to reconfigure your browser’s default search engine options. The website tenbluelinks offers instructions on how to do this in Chrome on Android, iOS, Windows, and...
wskenti revisited 9 to 5 last night and he remains excellent, along with the rest of that cast
Dabney Coleman, the actor who bossed Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton around in the 1980 comedy 9 to 5, died at his home in Santa Monica on Thursday. He was 92. His daughter, Quincy Coleman, confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter. “My father crafted his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity,” she said in a statement. “As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery. A teacher, a hero and a king, Dabney Coleman is a gift and blessing in life and in death as his spirit will shine through his work, his loved ones and his legacy … eternally.”
Born in Austin, Texas in 1932, Coleman studied acting at Sanford Meisner’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre from 1958 to 1960. But it was in his forties that he really became a household name. In a 2010 interview with Vulture, Coleman credited that shift in popularity to the soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman for showcasing his comedic chops. (He also theorized that growing his signature ‘stache helped.) Ultimately, Coleman developed a reputation for playing on-screen jerks in movies and shows such as 9 to 5, Buffalo Bill, Tootsie, Boardwalk Empire, and more. “It’s fun playing those roles,” he told Vulture. “You get to do outlandish things, things that you want to do, probably, in real life but you just don’t because you’re a civilized human being. There are no holds barred when you’re playing [jerks] — I couldn’t imagine anyone not loving playing those parts.”
Over the course of his decades-long career, Coleman won an Emmy Award for his supporting role in Sworn to Silence, a Golden Globe for Best Actor for The Slap Maxwell Story, and two SAG awards as part of the ensemble cast of Boardwalk Empire. More recently, he guest starred as John Dutton Sr. in Yellowstone. He is survived by four children and five grandchildren.
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wskentthe style is very bizarre and cool. like you
Krabi (in English, "The Crabs") is a 1976 animated sci-fi short film that takes the concept of carcinisation — the idea that everything eventually evolves into a crab-like form — to its logical militarized conclusion. The film was directed by Czech filmmaker Václav Mergl, adapting the short story "Crabs on the Island" by Ukrainian author Anatoly Dneprov. — Read the rest
The post Watch "The Crabs," a 1976 Czech animated sci-fi short about weaponized robot crabs appeared first on Boing Boing.
wskentthe premise is the best part of this movie and is what makes it worth watching. give it a stream, but know it's not perfect
Horror films live and die by their conceits. And sometimes, the best way to make a movie scary is to place it in an environment that’s not scary at all.
Is there anything further from spooky than a brightly lit TV studio? The surprise box office darling Late Night with the Devil, which hit horror streamer Shudder this weekend (and might be more suited to home viewing), tries to make one of the most innocuous American broadcast traditions into a terror. David Dastmalchian, a character actor who you’ll recognize from the margins of half a dozen Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve movies, gets a rare star turn as Jack Delroy, the host of late-night talk show Night Owls. But in an era where Johnny Carson rules after-hours broadcast,...
wskentKC on kottke!
I enjoyed Ezra Klein’s podcast conversation with Nilay Patel, the editor of The Verge. They talked about media and AI mostly.
(First of all, anyone who says they’re trying to “revolutionize the media through blog posts” is a-ok in my book.)
Anyway, here’s Patel on the limitations of AI and where humans shine:
But these models in their most reductive essence are just statistical representations of the past. They are not great at new ideas.
And I think that the power of human beings sort of having new ideas all the time, that’s the thing that the platforms won’t be able to find. That’s why the platforms feel old. Social platforms like enter a decay state where everyone’s making the same thing all the time. It’s because we’ve optimized for the distribution, and people get bored and that boredom actually drives much more of the culture than anyone will give that credit to, especially an A.I. developer who can only look backwards.
Later he talks more specifically about why curation will grow more important in a world inundated with aggressively mid AI content:
And the idea is, in my mind at least, that those people who curate the internet, who have a point of view, who have a beginning and middle, and an end to the story they’re trying to tell all the time about the culture we’re in or the politics we’re in or whatever. They will actually become the centers of attention and you cannot replace that with A.I. You cannot replace that curatorial function or that guiding function that we’ve always looked to other individuals to do.
And those are real relationships. I think those people can stand in for institutions and brands. I think the New York Times, you’re Ezra Klein, a New York Times journalist means something. It appends some value to your name, but the institution has to protect that value. I think that stuff is still really powerful, and I think as the flood of A.I. comes to our distribution networks, the value of having a powerful individual who curates things for people, combined with a powerful institution who protects their integrity actually will go up. I don’t think that’s going to go down.
Yeah, exactly. Individuals and groups of like-minded people making things for other people — that stuff is only going to grow more valuable as time goes on. The breadth and volume offered by contemporary AI cannot provide this necessary function right now (and IMO, for the foreseeable future).
And finally, I wanted to share this exchange:
EZRA KLEIN: You said something on your show that I thought was one of the wisest, single things I’ve heard on the whole last decade and a half of media, which is that places were building traffic thinking they were building an audience. And the traffic, at least in that era, was easy, but an audience is really hard. Talk a bit about that.
NILAY PATEL: Yeah first of all, I need to give credit to Casey Newton for that line. That is something — at The Verge, we used to say that to ourselves all the time just to keep ourselves from the temptations of getting cheap traffic. I think most media companies built relationships with the platforms, not with the people that were consuming their content.
I never focused on traffic all that much, mainly because for a small site like kottke.org, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do, vis-à-vis Google or Facebook, to move the needle that much. But as I’ve written many times, switching to a reader-supported model in 2016 with the membership program has just worked so well for the site because it allows me to focus on making something for those readers — that’s you! — and not for platforms or algorithms or advertisers. I don’t have to “pivot to video”; instead I can do stuff like comments and [new thing coming “soon”] that directly benefit and engage readers, which has been really rewarding.
See also Kyle Chayka’s recent piece for the New Yorker: The Revenge of the Home Page.
Perhaps the platform era caused us to lose track of what a Web site was for. The good ones are places you might turn to several times per day or per week for a select batch of content that pointedly is not everything. Going there regularly is a signal of intention and loyalty: instead of passively waiting for social feeds to serve you what to read, you can seek out reading materials-or videos or audio-from sources you trust. If Twitter was once a sprawling Home Depot of content, going to specific sites is more like shopping from a series of specialized boutiques.
I’m going to get slightly petty here for a sec and say that these “back to the blog / back to the web” pieces almost always ignore the sites that never gave up the faith in favor of “media” folks inspired by the former. It’s nice to see the piece end with a mention of Arts & Letters Daily, still bloggily chugging along since 1998. /salty
Tags: artificial intelligence · Ezra Klein · interviews · Nilay Patel · podcasts · weblogs
wskent!!! URGENT !!! THIS CHILD HAS TALENT!
Congratulations to young Cooper [Last Name Withheld] of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, who recently travelled to the coastal Belgian town of De Panne and took home the crown in the EC Gull Screeching competition, which is apparently a real thing. Yes, that would be a seagull screeching competition. — Read the rest
The post 9-year-old British boy wins Europe-wide Imitation Seagull Screeching Competition appeared first on Boing Boing.
wskenti saw this last night. it was super uneven, but the fun/scary parts were so fantastic. the cast was also outstanding
The devil works hard — end of sentence. Late Night with the Devil had a fittingly satanic opening weekend, not only coming in 6th place at the box office, but also bringing in a reported $666,666 on Sunday of all days, according to Variety. That amount contributed to its $2.8 million weekend total, which is a much less eerie number.
If you’re looking to ward off evil spirits after hearing that news, look no further than the film that snagged the number one spot this weekend, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which exceeded expectations with a North American total of $42 million. Dune: Part 2 held the number two spot with $17.6 million, closely followed by Kung Fu Panda 4’s $16.8 million. If that’s not enough to ward off the devil, Sydney Sweeney’s religious horror movie Immaculate took the fourth place spot with $5.3 million. Maybe she can perform an exorcism on the box office.
wskent“The United States has more golf courses than McDonald’s locations.” WHAT!?
Mark Twain once said: “golf is a good walk spoiled.”1 Some American communities are realizing that a golf course is a good outdoor space spoiled.
A small number of shuttered golf courses around the country have been bought by land trusts, municipalities and nonprofit groups and transformed into nature preserves, parks and wetlands. Among them are sites in Detroit, Pennsylvania, Colorado, the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, and at least four in California.
“We quickly recognized the high restoration value, the conservation value, and the public access recreational value,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, California state director with the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, which bought the San Geronimo course, in Marin County, for $8.9 million in 2018 and renamed it San Geronimo Commons.
The article also shares this startling fact: “The United States has more golf courses than McDonald’s locations.” WAT.
Tags: environment · golf · sports
wskentoh i love this
wskenti suspect this will be excellent
And now, in the category of Shows You Must See Based Only on the Description: Cole Escola is making their off-Broadway debut in Oh, Mary! Written by the actor and comedian, it’s centered on Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Honest Abe’s assassination. Escola, of course, will play Mary Todd. Are you not sold yet? Oh, Mary! will be directed by Sam Pinkleton (Here We Are), which brings exactly the prestige that a show examining “the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot” deserves. Oh, Mary! begins previews at the Lucille Lortel Theater on January 26, before opening on February 8 for a limited eight-week run. Get ready, because the wiggiest production of the season is coming our way.
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wskentboo. bandcamp is one of the good ones
Update, October 16: Around 50 percent of staff at Bandcamp have been laid off after Epic sold the platform to Songtradr. Several staff members of the site’s editorial arm, Bandcamp Daily, were among those laid off, they shared on X. When Epic announced the sale, the gaming company said not all employees would receive offers from Songtradr. “These are not new layoffs,” Epic told Vulture in a statement today, adding that laid off employees would receive severance from Epic. Songtradr, a licensing company, previously confirmed on October 5 that the layoffs would occur. “Based on its current financials, Bandcamp requires some adjustments,” the company said. Bandcamp United, the workers’ union, had previously asked Songtradr to offer employment to all current Bandcamp staff, along with voluntary severance, after the sale. Songtradr has yet to recognize the union.
“Over the past few years the operating costs of Bandcamp have significantly increased. It required some adjustments to ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans,” Songtradr included in a statement to Vulture. “After a comprehensive evaluation, including the importance of roles for smooth business operations and pre existing functions at Songtradr, 50 percent of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr. We are committed to keeping the existing Bandcamp services that fans and artists love, including its artist-first revenue share, Bandcamp Fridays and Bandcamp Daily.”
about half the company was laid off today. some of the most incredible people i’ve ever worked with, including two of my amazing editorial colleagues @diamonde and @atoosamoinzadeh and most of the incredible support staff among many others. this is a loss, no two ways about it
— jj skolnik (@modernistwitch) October 16, 2023
Original story published September 28 follows.
It’s game over for Epic’s ownership of Bandcamp. The indie music marketplace is being sold to Songtradr, a licensing platform, alongside broader layoffs at Epic. The sale is the second time Bandcamp has changed hands in less than two years, after the formerly independent company was purchased by Epic in March 2022. At the time, Epic committed to prioritizing artists with Bandcamp while helping the platform’s technological development. Now, the Fortnite maker is laying off 16 percent of staff — roughly 830 employees — while also dropping the marketing company SuperAwesome. “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators,” CEO Tim Sweeney said in a letter to employees. “I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect, I see that this was unrealistic.”
Songtradr, in its own press release announcing the acquisition, made the same commitment to “continue to operate Bandcamp as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share.” The company seems to see Bandcamp as an asset to its own licensing business, describing plans to “offer Bandcamp artists the ability and choice to have their music licensed to all forms of media including content creators, game and app developers and brands.” Additionally, Epic is investing in Songtradr amid the sale and plans to work with Songtradr to license Bandcamp music to Epic games. Sounds complicated, but as long as we can still buy our albums …
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wskenti am very excited to watch planet earth III: the reckoning
Planet Earth III will begin airing later this year on BBC and, presumably, at some later time in the US. The latest installment in the legendary series, 17 years after the first one was released, will once again be presented by Sir David Attenborough, now 97 years old and still as enthusiastic about sharing the wonders of nature as he ever was.
'The opening of the series with David was filmed in the beautiful British countryside in exactly the location where Charles Darwin used to walk whilst thinking-over his Earth-shaking ideas about evolution. It seemed the perfect place for David to introduce Planet Earth III and remind us of both the wonders and the fragility of our planet. ....and for him, of course, the sun shined under blue skies one of the only days it did all summer!.'
The video above is a quick first look at the series and here's a trailer as well:
Looking forward to this...the Planet Earth series is still the gold standard for nature documentaries.
Tags: David Attenborough · Planet Earth · trailers · TV · video
wskentway more interesting than it should be: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/11/1077232/corporate-presentations-history
MIT Technology Review has a strangely fascinating new piece about the history of the corporate presentation. PowerPoint-esque slideshows have become ubiquitous for anyone who's ever spent a moment in a white collar or corporatized job setting. But as a narrative form — as I've now learned — the slideshow presentation dates all the way back to 1948, at an annual sales meeting for Seagram's whiskey:
— Read the restNo expense has been spared: there's the two-hour, professionally acted stage play about the life of a whiskey salesman.
wskentfucking finally. recommendations are why we have Qanon
YouTube’s homepage will now look very different if you have your watch history turned off. Instead of surfacing a page full of suggested videos, you’ll mostly see nothing.
The change is all part of a “new viewer experience” Google announced on Tuesday. If you’ve switched your YouTube watch history to off and “have no significant prior watch history,” you won’t see features that need a watch history to provide recommendations.
That means you’ll only see the search bar on the homepage, along with the Shorts, Subscriptions, and Library buttons. This could come as a welcome change for people who hate sifting through increasingly extreme thumbnails to find the play button, but it could also be a way to annoy users into turning the history...
wskentpeewee is weird, queer, and great. this christmas special is overlooked, but so fucking good. also rewatch the big adventure movie and his clips on letterman. so so good
wskentwomen's world cup! WATCH IT!!
This advertisement from Orange, the French telecom company, about the French national football team is one of the best commercials I've seen recently. I don't want to tell you too much about it because the impact of it comes from watching it, so just watch it and you'll see. And afterwards, you can read more about the ad here.
Tags: 2023 World Cup · advertising · France · soccer · videowskentstill the best. spoiler: "Of course, Google did kill it. (Google didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.)"
Ten years after its untimely death, the team that built the much-beloved feed reader reflects on what went wrong and what could have been.
wskentinstant share
I'm not a big trailer guy, but any information about the upcoming season of Tim Robinson's hilarious sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave is cause for celebration.
The third season is scheduled to be released on May 30.
So many of the sketches from this show have become iconic comedy classics, none more than this insane "Focus Group Sketch." — Read the rest
wskentvery cool - direct link https://twitter.com/mod_in_metro/status/1656607582986063874/photo/1
This 1929 drawing of the Piccadilly Circus Underground Station, by Italian engineer, architect, and designer Renzo Picasso (1880-1975), is a thing of beauty. The image is from the Renzo Picasso Archives; Strange Maps describes it:
— Read the restTwo Tube lines crossing at Piccadilly Circus, as seen from below ground – with buses floating on the invisible surface.
wskentbe visionaries. check THESE OUT
wskent"Scientists have found a way to decode a stream of words in the brain using MRI scans and artificial intelligence. The system reconstructs the gist of what a person hears or imagines"...excuse me, what?
The trailer for a Frog and Toad TV series, now streaming on Apple+.
"Scientists have found a way to decode a stream of words in the brain using MRI scans and artificial intelligence. The system reconstructs the gist of what a person hears or imagines..." Wow.
The web's most important decision: CERN putting the WWW into the public domain. "Nobody owned the web, and the web wasn't licensed. It was simply a part of the world, for anybody to use, distribute, or modify."
The trailer for The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the Hunger Games prequel set 60+ years in the past, based on the book by 2020 book by Suzanne Collins.
Q&A: Chronicling the failures of the U.S. response to Covid. "The Covid war revealed a collective national incompetence in governance."
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wskenti hope this dwayane wade story gets some traction. he seems like he's been a great ally and advocate. i also hear nothing about high profile people leaving places/calling them out and this seems like an important thing for the meejda to pick up on
Former NBA star Dwyane Wade, a Florida sports legend whose daughter is trans, revealed he moved out of the state in part because his "family would not be accepted or feel comfortable there".
So Your Kid Wants to Be a Twitch Streamer. "My son and I were out for a walk when he told me he wanted to be a streamer when he grows up. He's 11. I instantly grew a long and bushy beard."
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wskentqwitter, bye bye
Following NPR yesterday, PBS is also quitting Twitter after it was tagged as government-funded.
"PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time," PBS spokesman Jason Phelps said in an email. — Read the rest
